Diving With The Citizen “Challenge Diver” Fujitsubo 35th Anniversary
Wait, The Bezel Is Bright Blue & The Whole Thing Is Coated With Platinum?
The well-told story goes that in 1983, a Citizen Challenge Diver washed up in good working order on Long Reef Beach in Sydney, Australia. Produced in 1977, the watch spent roughly six years among the waves, emerging encrusted within a barnacle or fujitsubo in Japanese. A recent marketing graduate’s dream, Citizen wove the tale into the 2022 release of a new Challenge Diver-inspired reissue now known as the Promaster Fujitsubo. Positioned above many of Citizen’s Promaster divers including the legendary Aqualand at $1,195, the Fujitsubo was presented in Citizen’s proprietary Super Titanium and powered by a 4 Hz automatic caliber from Miyota.
Fast forward a couple of years, and in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Promaster collection, Citizen unveiled an intriguing new variant of the Fujitsubo with a truly novel anodized blue bezel and a platinum DLC coating for its titanium case and bracelet. Say what you want about the new design, it is undeniably different, but is different a good thing? In this edition of the Dive Log, I’ll share my experiences living and diving with the Fujitsubo 35th Anniversary, a watch that unapologetically stands out from a sea of vintage-inspired divers afraid of descending too deeply into the unknown.
